Debtors
by The Exile
Summary: A portal appears between Earth and Algol. When Devon Mogay's girlfriend is killed, he steps through the portal and is trapped in the sinister game of a powerful, insane psychic.
1. Chapter 1

Devon Mogay was tired.

It was mid-afternoon in the middle of summer in England and he felt like he was dying of heat exhaustion just walking up the road. He wiped away the sweat from his handsome face, brushing away a lock of deep red hair. He pondered stopping to buy some water but he couldn't be bothered and anyway, he was a student so he had no money. He followed the road to the University and walked through its grounds. He soon reached the long winding road that went up to his house. It wasn't far now until he could lock himself in his room with the fan turned to maximum. He heard an owl hoot as he went past a tree. He was near the entrance of the park already.

Then he stopped. Why was it suddenly nightfall? It had only been half past two when he looked last. He shook his head. His watch was wrong - that had to be it. He yawned and continued walking.

Then he heard a different noise - an artificial noise like a surge of power or something electrical blowing a fuse but far louder. To be precise, it went 'FFAUGLM!'. He looked around in surprise. It was suddenly pitch dark, like the dead of night. The noise emanated from something in the park. It looked like some scaffolding had been hastily erected and something on top of it was emitting a weird energy that flared monochrome. The pattern spread outwards in a dome shape, slowly encompassing all of the area there was. He heard another noise, like a fax or a very old modem, coming from inside the sphere. He watched it in fascination at first. Then he heard yet another noise- a scream. A familiar voice.

"JOAN!" he yelled, running towards the pulsing dome of energy. He could just make out the figure of his girlfriend near its perimeter, screaming and hitting it. It was crackling as though it was electrified. He ran to her aid.

"The barriers! They're turning hostile!" she yelled.

"Joan, come away from it! I'll handle it!" he ordered.

"No! I can't go home! None of the barriers let us in... everyone... it took everyone..." she began sobbing. Devon grabbed her in his arms and pulled her back.

"It must be a virus... I'll fix it..." he held out his arm. Before he could finish whatever he planned to do, however, the energy flared wildly and shot out past him. Joan shrieked. Devon turned around just in time to see her evaporate, immolated by the black and white fire, before he himself was taken by darkness.

An owl hoots.

She looks through the tall slit window. All she sees are the lw-addmers sliding along the natural crystalline platforms and the administrative tinge to the air. She walks silently across the room like a swan gliding across a lake, then looks through the other window. There she sees the owls. She watches them.

This is how she sees the ripple. Like a monochrome wave in a badly coloured sea, it spreads from the rift outwards. A leakage of pressure, more being pulled in than out.

"Who else is making gateways?" she wonders, "And which side are they making them from?"

As she touches the window, it ripples and both of them disappear.

Heat. Oppressive heat that bore down on him so hard he thought he would be crushed under the weight. His throat was parched and his flesh felt raw and burned. He coughed. Sand entered his lungs, making him splutter. He wanted to stand up but his limbs felt heavy. He was so exhausted. The pain was wearing him out even more. Oh, to succumb to sleep... this was probably all just some kind of terrible nightmare anyway...

"Meow?"

Something soft and furry poked its nose in his ear. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of small green eyes staring unblinking at him. The cat purred and rubbed its face against his. Devon picked up the cat and stroked it.

"Hullo, pussy cat! Who's a nice kitty?"

The cat gave him a funny look and meowed again. It walked off, batting its tail into the sand and raising golden clouds in the vast desert that Devon seemed to have ended up in. It went to a pile of seemingly random things dumped in the sand nearby and rooted around in it. Purring with satisfaction, it retrieved a small blue cloth cap and walked back with it. It meowed and dropped it in Devon's lap.

"Is that for me? I don't think it suits..."

"MEOW!" ordered the cat. Devon shrugged and put the hat on his head. It fit quite well.

"That'll be 500 meseta, please."

"AAAAAAAAAAARGH! A TALKING CAT!" yelled Devon.

"AAAAAARGH! A TALKING NON-CAT!" replied the cat, batting its tail in what was a sarcastic gesture to cats, "Now are you going to pay me or do I have to scratch your..."

But Devon had already fainted. The cat rolled its eyes. Standing on Devon's head, it yelled "RYUKA!"


	2. Chapter 2

Devon was much cooler and in a lot less pain when he woke for the second time. He was still sleepy but he was able to move and he thought he would stay awake now. He looked around and saw that he was in a house. Made of sandstone, the roof was open and had pipes arranged as a cooling and ventilation system in the desert. He himself was in a bed with crisp white sheets. His clothes were gone, replaced with a simple brown jerkin and trousers and a heavy-looking leather jacket. On the table next to him was a vial of blue liquid that looked like something strongly alcoholic, possibly paint stripper. He considered drinking it but decided against it - considering the weird things that were happening to him, he didn't trust anything or anyone any more. The door was unlocked so he walked out into a narrow corridor carpeted with an intricate circular pattern of squares. It was dark now, silent apart from the hooting of owls and the air was thick with... something. He wasn't quite sure. He had experienced it before, sitting alone at night in house, glancing out of the corner of his eye. Sometimes it moved the dust or made a noise like a save point on a computer game. But here it was everywhere, like it ruled the place. It made everything look... grainy. The sounds were more like faint music from far away. He looked out of the window and saw the wind blowing the sand lazily around in circles, making a pattern similar to the one on the carpet.

"Devon..."

The voice was a soft whisper, almost as one with the wind. It was female. Something compelled him to run towards it. Joan... maybe it was Joan! After all, he wasn't dead so why should she be? He ran down the corridor, through another door and into a reception area. A rather vicious looking black cat was asleep on the desk. It wore sharp metal things over its claws and its front teeth. Devon was glad it was asleep. He pushed open the main door and ran out into the desert.

"Devon, help me, I'm injured..."

He ran in the direction of the voice, towards the soft wind that buffeted his clothes and hair. The feeling grew more tangible, ringing like alarm bells on some system clock... he could definitely hear music... The image of the girl appeared as he ran further out into the desert, and the wind grew wilder, whipping around and around, tinged blue in the darkness. She wasn't like Joan at all; she was very small, almost boyish, wearing a black cowled robe that covered her face except for two blue eyes and thick brown hair. She stretched her hand out as he approached.

"Devon... my Grantz... thank god, you do still exist... heal me..."

"I'm not a healer, sorry..." he said, reaching out and grabbing her hand anyway, feeling the wind trying to pull them away, "I could try and help but I don't know what good it'll..."

He cried out in pain as his hand was engulfed in crackling black energy. It felt as though he had been electrocuted. The wind was a raging storm and he was being swallowed by the maelstrom...

He woke up with a start. He was still standing in the corridor, staring out through the window. He must have imagined the whole thing. Except that he could hear his voice being called and soft padded feet were walking towards him.

"What, you've really never met a musk cat before, meow?"

Devon slumped in the laerma wood chair and tried not to think about the talking cats too hard. He was in the cat's office. Mog Mogic, as the cat was known, curled up in her red velvet-lined basket and turned a rollerball mouse with her paw. A sign on the desk said 'meow'. Even though they could speak other languages, they had their own well-developed language consisting entirely of the word 'meow'.

"You must have come from a very remote part of the planet, meow." the cat told him, "We're a multinational venture. Mogic Industries, inventors of the universal translation cap."

"That's the thing on my head, right?" he tried to ignore the fact that cats were in control of multination corporations.

"Yes, and you haven't paid for it yet. Honestly, you non-cats... you expect me to rescue you and heal you and give you merchandise for free?"

"Sorry, but..." he bowed his head, "All my money was in my clothes and they're not there any more."

"I looked in those and there was nothing of value, meow." she gave him an irritated glare, "Wait a minute, you're not another one, are you?"

"Another what?"

"We've had cases of people just appearing from nowhere, not being able to speak the language, with no memory of who or even what they are. They look like regular people but act like aliens. Like they've never even seen this planet before. Bizarre, eh?"

"Was there a girl?" asked Devon.

"Plenty, meow." the cat flicked her tail, "Anyway, if you're one of them, I guess I'll have to register you as well."

"Register?"

"Don't worry, it's painless. You'll just be analysed by a specialist data memory technician who will extract data on who you are and where you should be returned to."

"President, Doran isn't receiving anyone under any circumstances at the moment." the big black guard cat told her.

"Oh, not AGAIN!" she sniffed, "In that case, we'll have to go to Tonoe and hope you're a simple case that Grandfather Dorin can sort out. Ah, you're probably just a Numan."

"Numan?" asked Devon.

"You'll remember once you're registered, meow. We leave at nightfall. Unlike some stupid non-cats, I don't get lost in the desert in the middle of the day."

Two hours after Mog Mogic left her office, a customer walked in.

"I'd like to return this." with an elegant flick of his wrist, the tall, graceful man wearing a black cloak with red lacing and matching waistcoat removed his hat and threw it onto the desk, right on top of the receptionist's record book. The yellow cat gave him a look that distinctly told him that she was unimpressed.

"This is the fourth one you've returned, meow."

"This is the fourth time I've been unable to understand what the feeve she's saying." he even swore elegantly.

"Maybe you're wearing it the wrong way up, meow." she purred in amusement, "What does the language sound like? Our caps cant translate Rykrosian or Tech Latin yet."

"It sounds like ordinary Palman with a Motavian accent, except that the words don't make sense. It's just garbage. In fact, everything's garbage. Like they're all insane."

"Maybe you're the insane one, meow. You ARE dressed like Reypard La Shiec." she pointed out, "Besides, you can't translate insanity into sanity. The human brain doesn't work like that, meow. If it did, I'd be a mind repair technician and a millionaire by now."

"If she's mad, she's dangerous and it's my duty to banish her from my nation."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that." warned the cat ominously, flicking one of its ears up.

"Just fix my cap or send the refund to my bank account." the man sighed and turned on his heel to sweep dramatically out of the building. The cat sneezed. She knew exactly what the 'mad' girl was talking about and had no intention of telling him. There was going to be excitement soon.


	3. Chapter 3

She walked up the road. It was the middle of the night now. It was hard to keep track of time when using the portals. Teleporting that long a distance put you in a different time zone in a fraction of a second and it could be disorienting. She had done it before a hundred and one times, though. She could see the effects of the destroyed barriers immediately. The way the darkness seemed to disintegrate into pixels, losing their colour at the edge, to be replaced at odd angles by the light of the surrounding area, the unnerving silence broken only by crackles; it would feel odd even to an untrained eye. The nodes are fighting to maintain control, she realised- they were even trying to expand into the world outside and take it over - but she had no idea how long they could hold out with no protection. Whoever made the rift was very messy or had attacked the barriers on purpose.

Scanning the nodes yielded no signs of life. However, the nodes probably wasn't a reliable method of finding anything out any more. She would have to physically look for people. First of all she searched her own house for her house-mates. The house was empty and silent; even the computers were off. She was mildly annoyed at Devon; wasn't he the man who fixed the barrier when it went down? Most of all she was worried about the server. There were things on there even more important than holding up the barrier. The server was in the basement, so she put her hand on the door handle and...

The door felt wrong. Someone had opened it before - without permission! The surge of power she felt from the door as she opened it was like a flood of administrative life energy. It no longer opened into the basement. Someone had opened it to the other place. But that was impossible! Nobody else knew about the other place! She had tried to teach Devon and Lunacy about it but they didn't understand yet.

But there was no denying it. She felt the other's understanding of it.

The trek through the desert was relatively uneventful. Mogic Industries Motavia, being a flourishing business, had their HQ built right next to the capital. Mogic knew a little about desert survival and taught Devon how to survive, including how to deal with a few of the nastier animals that lived in the area. They apparently had sand worms big enough to swallow the University whole. They took care to avoid the signs of disturbances in the sand where the worms might emerge. It took them only an hour to reach Tonoe.

The trade capital of Motavia was an enormous market town situated inside a small area of the desert surrounded on all sides by a mountain, with a heavily guarded entrance via a cave. Bustling with activity, it consisted of rows upon rows of market stalls with Motavian vendors loudly advertising their wares, haggling and generally shouting about things. Children and the occasional dog ran around and around, singing to the cheerful music that played constantly in the background. Devon found the Motavians very strange people; they wore blue owl feathers all over their bodies, even going so far as to wear beak masks and strange lenses over their eyes so that they really did look like blue owls. Mog said he'd remember why once he was registered. Their biggest product, apart from water, was technology- lots of it, big, chunky and lowtech, mostly land-rovers and computers. They openly fixed things in the street and tried to sell them to people, or even ran out of a big forge somewhere with newly created parts. Devon couldn't see a pattern to any of it, didn't understand why anyone would want to cover themselves in feathers in the middle of a desert and wondered how exactly the town became a trading capital of anywhere except a lunatic asylum.

They stopped at a tall iron gate just before the town. A heavily armed and armoured guard yelled at them in a language Devon didn't understand - he had been warned that his translation cap didn't include Motavian and wouldn't do until he paid up. Mog meowed back at him and after a quick explanation, they were allowed into the town.

"Don't buy anything, especially water." warned Mog, "They don't mean it in a nasty way, but Motavians have this urge to swindle everyone who isn't a Motavian, meow.

Devon took her advice, waving away the constant stream of merchants heckling him. Mog was more direct, hissing and scratching people's legs. He followed the little cat through the market to another, less busy area full of white tents. In the middle of the tents was one larger tent upon which strange symbols were embroidered. Motavians in long red and black robes, some with mortarboards, walked in and out, carrying papers and looking very officious. They walked in without hindrance, although Devon was given some odd looks.

"You look like a Numan." explained Mog, "Motavians and Numans don't get on. They had a disagreement about a very important political event, meow."

She led him through a well kept area full of paperwork, laptops, weight and measures- obviously some kind of trade office. They went past what looked like a place of worship and a room full of more computers. Finally, they reached a room separated from the others by a bead curtain. Inside was a very old Motavian in red robes. His feathers were dark blue, long and wispy like a beard.

"Greetings, child of the Meow." he said to Mog.

"Old one." the cat inclined her tail respectfully.

"Let me guess, Doran's gone walkabout again and you've brought this one to me, eh?" he laughed, "Let's have a look at you, boy. What's your name?"

"Devon Mogay."

"Dev!" he picked up a clipboard and wrote something down.

"Hey, you can't just shorten my name!" protested Devon.

"Nonsense, boy, Devon is more than four letters and we want to give you a valid name, don't we?"

"There's nothing wrong with my name!"

"Co-operate with him, meow, he's only trying to save you from the rather nasty incompatibility effects." advised the cat.

Devon shrugged. "Dev isn't such a bad name, I guess."

"Good. Dev." he scribbled down something else, "Now, Dev, what species are you?"

"Pardon? I'm human..."

"Human. I'm guessing that's a fancy new term for a half-Numan." he wrote it down, "Do you remember anything at all about your life before you lost your memory? Where you were? What job you were doing?"

"Well..."

Before Dev could react, the old man had grabbed his hand and was staring intently at a mark on the palm, a huge black circle like he had been burned. That was where the girl had touched him... he hadn't even noticed!

"WEITH FO?" shouted the elder.

"Naj mem!" insisted Mog, staring at Dev in disbelief.

"What's going on?" he asked the cat. The furious Motavian grabbed a walking stick and hit Dev over the head with it, waving his arms and yelling 'NAJ RYUKA TONOE! RIY REVER!"

"I'll explain to you later, meow. Run!"


	4. Chapter 4

Dev ran as fast as he possibly could. While he was normally permanently exhausted, he did store up a lot of energy due to his inactivity and if he really needed to, he could run like a maniac. Guards were chasing him now, some firing guns but missing wildly, intentionally or not. He ran into the desert, almost falling down a hole, retracing the route back to Mogic Industries. The guards left him alone once he was no longer close to the town - they obviously just wanted him out. He fell over in the sand, gasping for breath. He felt like throwing up, suddenly realising how little he'd eaten: one apple forcibly sold to him and the blue liquid, which wasn't even alcoholic.

"Are you okay, meow?"

"Hungry..." groaned Devon.

"I stole some food, meow, have it."

The cat dropped a loaf of bread and some apples in his lap. Devon didn't understand how the cat carried all those things but ate his food anyway. The cat curled up next to him and stared in the direction of Motavia.

"What was all that about?" asked Devon.

"That mark on your hand, meow... where did you get it?"

"I don't know..." Devon hadn't had it before touching that girl's hand in the desert. But that was just a dream... wasn't it? It felt like a dream. On the other hand, he was talking to a cat in the middle of a desert populated by angry owl people.

"That mark is only given to people who are banished from everywhere on the planet, meow. It means you can't enter any homestead."

"Banished?"

"I'm not even legally allowed to let you in Mogic HQ, meow."

Devon looked glum.

"But you'll still help me out, right? I mean... it's only a law. And I can't survive in the middle of the desert on my own."

"How will it look to my customers if I'm harbouring known criminals, meow?"

"It'll look like you're a nice person?" suggested Devon.

"We're not a charity, meow. Businesses can't be nice."

"I could make it worth your while." said Devon, thinking quickly. The cat's ears pricked up. "You said there are lots of people who just appeared here like me. If they're really from the same place as me, I might know them. I could act as a go-between. I'm very popular."

"Very popular, you say? Even though you've been banished from everywhere?" the cat swished her tail, amused. "I'm sorry, meow, but you must have done something terrible to get that mark and I don't want it happening to me. You claim to have lost your memory, but you might be lying. I'll get you some food, money and desert supplies so you won't die, but I can't help you beyond that. Besides..." the cat's eyes flashed green as she said this and he saw something familiar in them momentarily, "You can't hide behind me forever. You have to find out what's happening to you and why."

"I... guess you're right." he bowed his head, "Just let me sleep until tomorrow night. I've got to go and look for... whatever it is I've got to find."

It's that girl, he thought, I've got to find that girl.

"Don't get killed/ Hire a merc from the Hunter's Guild/ Hire a skilled/ Mercenary from the Guild!"

Che quaffed his flagon of ale as he finished the third verse of the Guild song. The Guild House was his favourite place to spend all his pay after a successful assignment. He had been tracking down a debtor who owed somebody 2 billion meseta and the pay had been lavish. It was well deserved - he and the fifteen other Hunters on the assignment had been sent all over Motavia to look for two people. There was a big celebration now and the bar was packed with mercenaries yelling, drinking, comparing weapons and watching dancers both male and female cavort on the stage.

Despite being new to the Guild, Che had quite a notorious reputation. He had won 'Hunter Of The Month' for the most successful assignments processed. He was skilled with the twin thrown blades he fought with and beat many other Hunters in duels. After only a month or so, he no longer felt like a foreigner, a stranger in a bizarre land he began to suspect was another planet. He had learnt the language and the many codes and rules that were so different to English behaviour. He enjoyed his life as a mercenary. It wasn't exactly a warlike place but it was dangerous, there was a high chance of being killed if you wandered around outside a town without a weapon or walked into a Motavian town and brought up the topic of Ragol. His sword training as a LARPer and a medieval re-enactor was actually useful here instead of being just a game. He got a lot more exercise now as well, he started developing muscle and his skin was bronzed in the Motavian sun.

Several of the Hunters turned around when the Guild secretary, a stern but pretty-faced woman, walked in and yelled the magic words:

"NEW JOBS!"

She was being followed by a tall, elegant, handsome man whose blonde hair was tied back neatly. Che had never seen another blonde on Motavia. He wore a black tunic and long red robes and radiated an aura of power as though he were more than human. A rapier hung at his ornate belt.

"Which of you is the greatest mercenary? I will hire only the best." he had a strong foreign accent.

"ME!" yelled a large black-haired man with a huge sword sitting by Che. A slicer flew across the bar and narrowly missed embedding itself into the man's head. It was thrown by a slim woman with long brown hair. Within seconds, a fight had broken out. Che ducked under the bar, not particularly wishing to be killed in a mercenary bar brawl. The secretary sighed and whispered something in the man's ear.

"Which one of you is Rune Walsh?" demanded the man in a voice of such authority that the mercenaries stopped fighting at once. There was a little shuffling and a tall, equally handsome man with long blue hair stepped forwards. He wore a white robe and carried a staff with green crystal inlay. He gave the customer a bored look.

"I've been on three jobs in a row. This better be good..." he began. Suddenly, he found a rapier at his throat.

"I challenge you to a duel." said the customer, "To see if you really are worthy of this assignment."

"You're a high level." noted Rune. Grinning, he warped a couple of metres back. Blue, green and red fields of arcane energy played over his form as he raised his arm and cast spell and technique. Taking a warrior's stance, the man cast Shift, letting waves of technique energy fill his body, making him stronger, then paced towards him. His rapier whipped across in a feint too fast for Rune to see and the man thrust at his chest. It would have been a serious injury if the rapier hadn't bounced off the three magical shields Rune had cast on himself. The wizard grinned and yelled "EFFESS!". A beam of pure light shot from the sky with a sound like the heavens themselves wrenching free and hit the man squarely. His robes charred and his hair dishevelled, he was knocked backwards. He gasped. Rune used the slight delay to strengthen his shields and barriers.

"You don't know the stat system very well, do you?" noted Che, "If you cast Saner, you own Rune's ass."

The customer glared at him, "You know how to beat this man, then?"

Che nodded, "He's at his most dangerous when he's grantzing. Never try and wack his client."

"You're obviously a very capable Hunter." said the man, "You're hired."

"What the... I never said I wanted to..."

"You will escort me to this place. I have heard it is dangerous." with an elegant flick of his hand, he threw a map at the Hunter. Che caught it. he gave his customer a funny look.

"Why on Algol d'you want to go there? Nothing there but monsters."

"I was told I could go back home if I did something there."

Che shook his head.

"Whatever, man. How much you payin'?"

"Fifty thousand meseta."

Che whistled.

"Meet me tomorrow at the Guild reception. Equip yourself well."

The customer walked out.

"Well, there goes my rest." muttered Che.

"Che, that man was from the same place as you, wasn't he?"

"He looked like it."

"Why don't you help each other find out what you're doing here? You might find a way back."

"I don't want to go back."

"You don't belong here. I'm a little worried about the balance of Algol, with all this data coming in from the outside world. This system is supposed to be isolated..."

"What the feeve?"

"Nothing. Er... wizard talk." Rune walked off.

"Don't belong here, huh? Like he belongs in the Guild. Stupid poncy esper boy..." Che muttered into his pint.


	5. Chapter 5

A couple of feet away from the Guild stood Aiedo's prison. It was a high security prison build to contain rowdy Hunters and Zio sympathisers but nothing that important - the big prisons were all on Dezolis. A man and a woman were just about to wake up and find themselves in a cell. They didn't know why. emo woke up and washed her face, looking at herself in the mirror. It wasn't bad as prison cells went. It was clean and had the necessary basics to live plus, for some reason, a small television tuned irrevocably to a Mega Drive. Her lover was still sound asleep on the bottom bunk. She shook him awake.

"Do you remember doing anything illegal, Mat?" she asked him. The big man shook his head. He was staring at his hands. They were covered in blue feathers. Mat was very confused. I'm on drugs, he thought, really weird ones. That has to be it.

"Are you sure?"

"Well..." There doesn't seem to be anything interesting here, said the words in his head. They were coming from the corner of the room. The dim, patchy, blocky corridor. He could hear it hum. It was like being in all time at once. He wished he could clear his head.

"Where are we anyway?" asked Imo, "There's a prison a couple of train stops away from our house, right? We must be there."

"I don't think so..." He carried on staring at his hands and at the wall. From a great distance, as through his HP was very low, he heard footsteps.

"Well, well. Two billion meseta. I'm impressed."

Mat looked up. The jailer was a fairly young man with blue hair and beard. He wore a smart red tunic and armour. A sword hung by his side.

"What do you mean?" asked Imo.

"You tell me." said the guard, "How exactly does one owe somebody two billion meseta?"

"We? Owe two billion? To whom?"

"How much is a meseta?" asked Mat dumbly.

"Who cares, dear? It's two billion." Imo reminded him.

The guard laughed, "You're in here for a long time. Unless you can pay back that much. I'll leave you to think about it, yes?"

"I... I can't pay back... that much..." began Mat. The guard smiled and wandered off, singing the background tune to himself under his breath. He slumped to the floor, his head in his hands, "I don't owe anybody anything! I swear!"

"Mat, stay focussed! If we've been falsely imprisoned, we have to get out of here before something worse happens! We don't know where we are, we don't know what..."

"You don't remember?"

The room was beginning to darken. It was breaking up, becoming blocky, time becoming more and more intensive. Mat reached out, tried to find emo but was fumbling in the darkness. He saw someone far away... a pixellated image... was it Imo?

"You owe me..."

"Who are you?"

"You... owe... me..." the figure turned around and began walking through the cell wall.

"Hey, don't just walk away! Did you put me in prison?" he ran after her but fell through the space, through the place he wasn't supposed to be able to walk through, down and down... he felt the soil of his own world for a moment...

Imo shook him awake.

"Were you listening to a thing I just said?"

"I... I don't feel well..."

Mat fell asleep.

Silent as a rat, Dev sneaked through the entrance, rusty metal half-concealed by sand, into the tunnel. Such places existed everywhere in the desert, collapsed by time and wind and sand, ruins of a civilisation nobody remembered having existed, simply building up as more and more people threw their rubbish down there and the Motavians who lived down there scavenged, repaired or recycled it all like big blue feathery Wombles. The lower depths were Motavian territory, places that non-Motavians just didn't go but here near the surface Dev knew that he probably wouldn't even be noticed. He could steal some food and shelter here until the weather was less deadly and he could move on again, continue his search for the elusive girl in the black robes.

He had been roaming the desert for days now, almost a month. He mostly survived by keeping to these underground lairs; the Motavians had the right idea. They rarely came out except to trade in Tonoe, something they did on a rota. Dev had become quite skilled at watching their movements, sneaking around, stealing whenever he had the opportunity and running like hell whenever he was caught. He had run into monsters a few times and was forced to defend himself on occasion. he discovered he could use his bursts of agility to his advantage and he was uncharacteristically strong in a crisis.

He crept along the rusty corridor with severed wires dangling from the ceiling and onto a wide balcony overlooking a huge room. Bin bags were piled in large heaps in one corner of the room, tower units from broken computers in another. The walls dripped with mould and damp. He looked around for anything he could use; there was nothing in this room but there were two other exits on the balcony and underneath him was another cylindrical corridor.

He was alerted to the sound of footsteps; more than one person coming directly towards him. He ducked back into the corridor and waited. The lights flickered and grew dim. After a few minutes of talking, three people walked in. They were Motavians, slightly smaller than the average person with tufts of blue feathers poking out of their cloak hoods. Their cloaks were black, an unusual colour for Motavians to wear. The cloak colours were some kind of role division in Motavian society and black-cloaked Motavians were generally not well received by the others. The three were running and looking around them as though they did not want to be caught. When they reached the middle of the room, they relaxed a little and stopped. They started talking in a businesslike manner, their voices too low for Dev to understand what they were saying. Two of them were arguing with the other one, trying to persuade her of something but she was having none of it. She folded their arms and shook her head. The other two gestured sharply with their arms. One pulled at the third one's sleeve and pointed back towards the door. Angry now, the third one grabbed the first one by the hem of his cloak and pulled his face up to hers. He gave up. Gesturing to the first one, he reached into his pocket for something. His colleague stretched out his hands and a whirlwind of strange dark energy began playing about them. The air suddenly tasted like rust and shiver went down Dev's spine. The third one reached up and lowered the hood of her cloak...

It was her! Dev's heart raced. Without thinking, he ran up to the balcony and jumped over the side, landing neatly in front of her. The two Motavians ran off. She stared at him with those eyes that seemed to look straight through him and concentrate intently on him at the same time. She nodded as if verifying his existence.

"So you made it." she said, "I'm glad you came. It was a very important event in my life and I only invited my closest friends."

"But I don't know you!" said Dev. Ignoring him, the girl started walking down the corridor and seemed to disappear, her pixels merging with the blocky decay of the wall. Swearing loudly, he ran after her.

He did not notice how far into the Bin he had gone until he felt a feathered hand on his shoulder. He jumped and turned around, one hand going to the knife at his belt. Six black-cloaked Motavians stood behind him, their beaked faces unreadable.


	6. Chapter 6

'Pressure' from Phantasy Star 2 played in the background.

The office was busy. Fans hummed, computers beeped, workers typed or operated the huge machines that lined the walls or ran from room to room with papers to be photocopied or trolleys full of supplies. It was clean and clinical and the workers wore spotless black suits. Hyd knew that none of them were human, they were either androids or numen, bio-genetic constructs who could be given the rough physical appearance and education of an adult human in a matter of days. This place was machine territory, no place for flesh and blood that might get in the machines and clog them up. It ran in the background of the mortal world, processes never to be seen.

An android designed to look like an oriental man in his mid twenties noticed Hyd's sudden arrival. He went over to her, smiling. He had fairly short black hair, wore a black suit and carried a briefcase.

"Clv Wayward, head of Zoran here. How may I help you today, Administrator Lucent?"

"Have you received any reports of trespassers in this sector, Moderator?" asked Hyd.

"No trespassers reported."

"Any anomalies at all?"

The android stopped and searched his data banks for the relevant information.

"One anomaly reported." he replied, "It was not a trespasser. It was authorised by Game Over Central."

"What was it?"

"The final product of Project Doran was allowed access to a top priority portal to Algol."

Doran! Hyd knew her friend wanted to go to other worlds but she had no idea the little exile had actual access to portals. Did she have real authority or was she a hacker?

"Where did the portal lead?"

"It was a direct portal to Rykros."

"Thank you for your assistance, Moderator Wayward."

"Administrator." the android saluted.

Hyd left via the Rykros portal.

His back to the wall, Dev brought out his knife and brandished it threateningly, looking from one black-robed figure to the next. They regarded him with the same unreadable expression as all Motavians wore.

"Don't worry, we won't harm you." said the leader, "Not unless you want us to. And pay us."

"Who are you people?" asked Dev.

"We're relatively new as an organisation." admitted the leader, "We are Game Over's servants here on Algol. We are... the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Motavia!"

"Gah..." Dev ran for the door. He was stopped by the leader, who closed it before he could reach it. Their eyes glinted red under their black cowls. They smelled of rust like the dark technique waves. Dev wasn't sure they really respected the 'Voluntary' part.

"No, don't be afraid. We just want to ask a favour of you. Our leader wants to see strangers from another world. He is one of you."

"Really?"

"He is Saint Kevorkian, risen from the dead!" the Motavian's voice wavered with the intensity of his reverence.

"Er..."

"Come with us." he ordered, pulling out what looked like a large scythe and pointing it at Dev. The man was surrounded. Nervously, he followed their leader down the long corridor. They moved swiftly and silently, looking around constantly as though they were afraid of being caught. They were like thieves, assassins. If they wanted to kill me here, they would and the authorities would never find the bodies or care about one missing exile. He walked for what seemed like hours, the tunnel stretching on until he could no longer see the entrance or the exit.

Finally he found himself in an open courtway deep under the ground, ending in many doors and stairways. Unlike most Motavian settlements, it was deliberately and permanently hewn from blue stone. Black tapestries hung on every wall, embroidered with a single white arrow pointing down. It was dark, lit by guttering torches on brackets on the wall. The effect was heightened by an ambient Game Over tune playing in the background and a black cat snoozing on a step. Several grotesque gargoyles leered down at him from the walls. It was as quiet as a church.

"Goth." he said admiringly.

"This is our office. We do not serve customers here." said the leader, "We come to their homes after midnight an we steal away their lives. When the Watch find the bodies, we are gone like ghosts."

"Is that legal?"

"Is anything legal? Look at emulators. Look at MP3s." the leader waved his arms dramatically. "Er... and it's voluntary, right?"

"Perfectly. All of our customers were asking for it."

"Right..."

The leader motioned towards the staircase. They climbed ten floors before stopping at a stone double door with a knocker shaped like a skull. The leader knocked three times. It opened with a theatrical creak.

"Behold... His Holiness, Saint Kevorkian!"

"GICE FALGUE!" roared the huge Motavian, "By the decree of the Ordo Grantz Templars, I will kill you"

The priest jumped back as the warrior leapt from the sand dune, swinging his axe down to land just where Gice had been standing. Although smaller than Gice, the wild-eyed Templar was built like a bear and was as furious and unstoppable as the wind. He wore Laconian plate mail and wielded a Laconian great axe. He regarded his prey with a look of utter hatred.

"It's me! Don't you remember me?" protested Gice, dodging two more axe swings and throwing up a protective technique-barrier to deflect a third before the blow could take his head off.

"I remember you, scum!" he roared, "You tried to do something to my client!"

"I was only talking to her! we're old friends!"

"She said you wanted to return her to eternal exile on a hellish prison planet!" he swung again. This time the priest side-stepped and hit the Templar with his own Laconian mace. He's slower than me, thought the priest, but if he hits me just once, I'm dead. My only hope is that he'll tire out faster than me, swinging such a heavy weapon around.

The blow hit the Motavian squarely on the head. Instead of going down, he let out an owl-like screech and rushed the priest. Gice tried to retreat. He felt rock against his back. Blows rained down upon his technique-shield until it was thin and flickered on and off. He was doomed unless he did something fast. A technique? He knew a technique called Vol but it could kill instantly and the priest would not kill his friends. Besides, if the man was a bonded Grantz, killing him would hurt Doran even more.

"Where's your client?" asked Gice suddenly, pointing. The big Motavian turned around. Doran was wandering off in the opposite direction, staring at the sky and talking to herself in Musk Cat.

"That's a teleport technique! Wait for me!" cried Axx, running off into the desert after his charge.

Sweat ran down the priest's forehead and he sank down into the sand, mentally exhausted. Again, he had failed to get near Doran. At least he wasn't dead at the hands of her bodyguard. Almost... he wished he didn't have to fight his friends.

"Gice, is that you?"

The priest jumped and turned around. Like a banshee rising from the mists, the ageless woman appeared before him in the sand as though she had always been there.


	7. Chapter 7

"How many times have I asked you not to call me that?" the furious pathologist bent down to pick one of the skulls from the foot of his throne and hurl it at his cultists. They ran away.

"Sorry about that. Ain't religion stupid?"

"Er..." Dev just stared at the old man. In place of his suit, he wore a long black velvet cloak over black robes fastened with a black sash. The cloak had red lining and very large shoulder pads. He looked like an evil wizard in a fairy tale, "You wanted to see me."

"Oh, you're the other guy from Earth!"

"We aren't on Earth?"

"We're very far away from home, brother." the man sounded sad for a moment, "Well, at least I'm not in prison any more. I've found out a lot from being here. It's changed my whole perspective on the world. Did you know that I found out what happens when people die? Basically, they..."

"What did you want to see me about?" asked Dev politely.

"I'm sorry, I'm being rude. There's something I have to talk to you about, Dev. You're looking for a girl called Doran, right?"

"I didn't know her name."

"She's the one who's sending people here." he told Dev, "She contacts you in dreams, doesn't she?"

Dev nodded.

"She has some amazing powers. I'm not sure what these powers are or why she has them but I know for a fact she is the one who sent us here. She is from this world. An exile. Like you. But she was sent to your world."

"I think I heard a story like that once..."

"She must have spent her entire life playing with portals, teleport techniques, ways to bridge your world and this one, so she can go home one day. She's been communicating with this world for years, wandering around in spirit form. And now she knows how to send physical objects through."

"So why doesn't she just go home? Why is she sending other people through?"

"I don't know. I think she still might not be able to send herself through. Maybe we're her experiments, like a scientist testing on chimps before he can put an advert out for human volunteers." his eyes narrowed, "There's something else you need to know about Doran. She's dead."

"What?"

"I went to the Game Over screen - where you go when you die - and her name is on the records. She's dead." he said, "But she's also still alive. I even managed to find out where her life signature is."

He reached into the pockets of his robes and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a map. It looked like the London Underground, a series of connected nodes in a rough cycle, except that it was far more complicated and all connected to a large square in the middle. In the square was an X. Dr. Kevorkian pointed to it.

"That's where she is. The Heart of the Wastebasket. Nobody knows what's in there - apart from Doran, apparently - so you'll be the first to find out."

"Why me?"

"My cult brings me lots of stories about people from Earth coming here. They all end up in different situations. The fact that Doran put you in the same situation as herself and keeps making you follow her around indicates that she likes having you around her. I wouldn't want someone to approach her who she didn't like. She might just delete them."

Dev shuddered. 'Delete' was not a friendly word.

"I'll do it on one condition." he decided, "You say you've been to the place where people go when they die?"

He nodded.

"Did you see a woman called Joan Clare-Lasbard?"

"Billions of life forms go there every second. It took me a week to find Doran on the database."

"Please look for her. If she's there, at least I'll know for certain... and I'll be able to mourn her properly."

"I'll do that. But... don't be so sad, young 'un." he smiled, "Death isn't a bad or evil thing. I used to think like you... death was bad when it took young people away in their prime, good when it came as a mercy. Now I know it's just an administrative process. It's just something the Universe does to you. Like switching off a computer, closing down a shop... or just ticking a box on a form. Game Over is a big office, that's all it is."

"That's... not the slightest bit comforting."

"I'm not here to comfort you, I'm here to do my job. Now go."

Airetam La Shiec gripped the pommel of his sword and walked confidently towards the gate. His cloak blew in the artificial wind on the asteroid that should not support life. The ship had left, the mercenary returned to Aiedo with a heavy pay packet. He had done his job; Airetam was at the gates of the inner sanctum of the floating castle and no longer needed protection. It was up to him to learn to fight for himself; he knew he wouldn't survive unless he understood this world, even though he was strong and fast and could use magic. This was his quest.

As his hand touched the stone door, there was a rumble and the enormous stone gargoyles ripped free of their holding. Masonry rained down onto Airetam's head. He whipped out his sword and slashed at the roaring two-headed things that floated towards him, breathing fire. He put a Saner up and forced himself to look at the numbers that he saw every time he sliced off a chunk of stone, whenever a creature drew blood and he felt pain, whenever he saw the light flicker from their eyes as they fell silent and dropped like stones from the air to crumble on the ground. I am level 98, he repeated like a mantra. I have 686 HP and 300 TP...

The stairs crumbled under him and he fell into a crypt. It stank of mould and decay. Statues of noblemen and ladies, once beautiful and elegant, now weathered away, stood either side of a moth-eaten carpet. He eyed the statues suspiciously but they stayed where they were as he walked down the carpet and into a corridor. It grew steadily darker. He was soon feeling his way through, measuring time and distance by drops of moisture falling. Suddenly he smelled rust. Something materialised from the darkness, things with leathery faces and soulless yellow eyes. They flickered in and out of existence from tiny pockets of gravity, peeking out from their negative plane. Claws flickered into being and raked at his face. Airetam drew his sword and slashed at one of them but the blade passed straight through it. He swore. Look at the numbers, he reminded himself. It's immune to physical attacks but very weak against the Gra technique. He focussed on the word - GRA - and felt the power well up inside the part of his brain he had never used before. Energy crackled around his hands. He pointed to the creatures and felt the energy transfer across. Gravity seemed to distort and ripple and finally implode and the creatures screamed as their portals collapsed in on themselves. He let out a cry of victory.

Light returned to the corridor as he neared the end. It was warm here, the walls were naturally blue from the rock and there was a low rumbling sound. He passed through a tall stone archway onto a small square platform in the middle of a lake of lava. It was a dead end and there were no other passageways. Now what, he wondered. After a minute's wait or so, he felt the ground shake and he realised that the platform was rising upwards like a lift. He saw gears and pistons and realised that this was the internal workings of the castle, the lava's kinetic and heat energy powering whatever maintained the artificial environment. He ascended beyond that and the square stopped in a large chamber made up of lots of these smaller squares. He noticed the intricacy of the pattern on the floor, its pixel-Hewn-pattern of blocky loops and whorls, square circles, different colours twisting around each other like a giant cycle. Music played in the background.

There was a 'FFAUGLM!' noise. Airetam drew his sword as something materialised in a fog of pixels. It was the girl.

"Who said you could come in? This is my room!"

"Are you the one who can send me home to my world?" he asked.

"You're not going home. I've decided." she said, yawning, "You've been very rude to me. And you didn't take care of me when I was an exile."

"You send me home right now, madwoman, or else..."

"Or else what?" she stretched her arm out and pointed to him. He felt a pain like a thousand knives vivisecting his soul as a column of wild pixel-energy crashed down onto him, pinning him to the ground. She walked over to him and dropped something near his hand. He tried to see what it was through the red clouds. An instructions manual for a computer game. Phantasy Star 4.

"I suggest you read it." she told him, "Because you're not leaving until you understand it. And what it is to be powerless, lost and lonely on and alien planet with nobody in authority giving a shit."

He grabbed the manual and tried to turn the page over. He felt the pain abate. It was so warm, like being back in the womb, he was helpless, all his strength gone... he couldn't remember ever having held a sword... he checked his stats - it came instinctively all of a sudden - and saw that he was level 1 again.

He passed out.


	8. Chapter 8

"Doran, stop it. Now."

The exile turned around. In front of her was Hyd Lucent, shining with a brilliant monochrome aura in astral form. Doran herself was a wild blue, like the Dezolis moon. They stood on Rykros, planet of Le Roof, the informational entity that taught the people of Phantasy Star and drove forward Algol's fate. Every spot of the green rock-dust and the pink crystals conducted a byte of information.

"What? He'll easily go up 97 levels."

"We mustn't hurt our friends." said Hyd sternly.

"He's not my friend. He hurt me."

"He's still a member of the community. We have a responsibility as the highest administrative ranking people in the community."

"Speak for yourself, I don't think you people have fully let me into the community yet." said Doran, leaning on a rock, "And you certainly don't give me any authority. I know all the things you hid from me. Like the existence of a portal between Earth and Algol."

"I'm sorry..."

"Is that why I suddenly lost contact with you all? Because you knew I was growing powerful enough to open the portal and didn't want me near it?"

"That's not it at all! I couldn't get it to work any more." she insisted, "I had it years before you were exiled here. That was before Earth lost contact with other worlds! All the portals suddenly broke until you made that rift."

"I didn't see anyone trying."

"Doran, if this is about petty vengeance..." she said crossly. Doran waved her away.

"I'm not doing this for my own sake. Le Roof told me to." she yawned, "But I'd rather tell you all about that at once. Dev is about to find out where my physical body is and I'm trying to get Che down there as well. Don't you want to go and talk to your friends?"

"They better be okay." she warned, "Don't forget that I'm still more powerful than you. I was on Earth's creation team."

Doran yawned and turned her back on Hyd, walking towards the Silence Temple. She opened the door, walked in and slammed it shut. Hyd slipped back into the physical world. Gice was watching over her, looking rather concerned.

"We follow Dev and Che." she told him.

Dev smelled like a dustbin.

He couldn't believe some of the things he saw rusting, discarded in piles along the trails as he crept through the Wastebasket. Alongside boxes of floppy disks and printer paper were bags of rappy feathers, strange flashing floor tiles that whirled round and round and parts for a mecha. The Motavians foraged the rubbish for everything they needed - they ate the more well-preserved food, they repaired the computers and used them, they even overhauled the vehicles and used the weapon parts to create new weapons. There were working teleport stations and, the Motavians' pride and joy, a spaceship. All time periods became one in this strange montage of civilisation - the Motavians saw time as a cycle, a constant circular continuity of which all parts had to be maintained. They still had posters on the walls for things that happened three thousand years ago.

Dev knew that this was a place for Motavians only. If he hadn't have been escorted by Saint Kevorkian's tribe, who were feared everywhere for being deadly assassins, a fuyodol riy like him would be dead.

The mess cleared as he descended and the bin bags thinned out. He saw massive electrical cables running along the ground like a giant leaf skeleton. He knew he was in the presence of some kind of giant machine, its low hum like a sleeping beast, its heat that of the desert. It beeped and all the machines in the Wastebasket answered.

A cultist pointed up. Above Dev, suspended by thousands of thick black cables and an antigravity field, was an enormous cube-shaped metal building. A stairway led up to it. Orange-robed figures holding computer equipment went up and down the stairs.

"The Lodge of the Holy Peripherated Brethren." whispered the leader, "They're a cybernetic machine-cult. They'll try and convert you if they see you, perhaps by force."

Dev gulped and hid. Was Motavia full of stupid cults? He heard a noise like a Mac starting up and the cultists all hurried into the building and began praying, a mass monotonous chanting. Dev and his escorts walked away from the building when the leader stopped them again, placing a hand upon Dev's shoulder.

"Something's wrong. I have one of those machines and they're not supposed to make that noise."

He signalled to the others and they ran, dragging Dev with them, through the corridor and away from the Church. The noise receded. Then, suddenly, it became louder. A cultist yelled. There was a whirring sound and something dropped on him. The cultist screamed as a robot crushed his skull with two metal fists. It beeped and its red searchlight scanned the other four and Dev. They had their partisans out now, their eyes also red. They hooted in warning. Undeterred, the machine took a few shots at them with its lasers. It missed. Two cultists ran towards it and swiped at it with their scythes. The blows made a serious rend in the robot's frame but did not put it out of action. It threw one of the cultists against the wall, knocking him unconscious, and jumped at Dev. He yelled and ran. The cultists ran after them both, raining scythe blows on the monster robot and trying to cut its power supply, pull the plug on it, whatever worked. It was unnaturally strong, even for an android, and absolutely furious. Dev tripped over something and landed on the floor. In desperation, he threw his knife at the thing. The blade hit its searchlight, embedding itself. The robot, suddenly unable to see, made an angry, faulty noise and fired randomly around the room, burning Dev as he failed to dodge an arm shot. It stung like hell. He wondered if he could still move the arm that hung limply at his side. The cultists jumped on the thing and physically ripped its power supply out. Finally it was silent.

"The machine doesn't usually fight back." said the leader, wiping the sweat off his brow.

"Where did it come from?" asked Dev, looking at the android. It was once a security android, shaped like a very tall man with long brown hair dressed in battle armour. It was twisted, rusted inside.

"Dunno. Probably an experiment gone wrong. Or a virus."

"I hope it was the last one." he looked sadly at the body of the fallen cultist. The leader muttered a prayer to Phantasy Star over him, cast an instant death spell to make sure he was dead and led them onwards.

At the end of the corridor, they found themselves in a pitched battle.


	9. Chapter 9

Two androids jumped Dev as he entered the room. He ducked and tried to unsheathe his knife but they stopped moving, a slicer solidly embedded in the back of their power supplies. Dev heard a yell, some kind of battle cry, and his friend jumped from a metal cable, landing on another android and jumping across to pick up his slicers. A cat ran after him, yowling loudly and dismantling anything that went near it with razor sharp claw extensions. Occasionally the sky was lit up by bolts of lightning that were thrown across the room, frying the androids' circuits, taking down four at a time. They came from a woman who stood calmly in the middle of the battlefield, her arm raised, bathed in an aura of power. Dev recognised it as Hyd Lucent. He gasped; he knew she had been here since long before their community had been created but he had no idea she possessed this kind of power. All his friends were here, all moulded in the image of this strange world, battling the endless horde of robots.

There was a small army of androids now, all attacking anyone they could reach, wildly firing lasers and making large holes in the metal walls. The room itself was a huge square chamber with several exits and a chute in the middle. A figure in a red travelling robe - the clothes of a Motavian shaman-priest - stood next to the closed chute. It was Gice. Occasionally he was attacked by an android but his hefty Laconian mace crushed their heads. He beckoned to Dev. He ran towards his friend.

"We've been waiting for you!" yelled Gice, "The lock on the door won't open for anyone except you. It works on voice recognition! Quick, we think Doran's down there!"

"OPEN UP YOU GODDAMN DOOR!" shouted Dev. Whirring, the door to the chute opened. Gice motioned to the others and they all jumped in, rushing past the androids. Dev watched the twenty or so insane robots as they ran towards him. Shrugging, he jumped in after his friends.

The chute went down a long way. It was pitch black and dusty, so dusty that he thought he might suffocate before he fell to his death at the end of the drop that must have been at least half an hour by now. He couldn't tell where his friends were. It seemed that time had frozen, that he was teleported to a different place, that nothing was the same as it had been when he jumped in the chute... He curled up into a ball and waited for whatever was going to happen. He hoped it was not too painful.

Finally, he landed with a soft thump and light invaded his vision again. He stood up. The fall can't have been that far- he wasn't even bruised. His friends were all around him, picking themselves up. Hyd looked upwards and Dev followed her gaze. They were outside, looking into the stars... no, they were on a balcony on some kind of space station, looking out into the infinitude of space itself. It was vast, cold, timeless. He saw, for a few brief seconds, how impossibly insignificant he was compared to those billions of terabytes of raw information of which he was barely a bit. He was so small, so cold, so alone. He wished Joan was here so he could at least hold her, protect her from the unearthly cold.

There was a low whine as a platform floated up to them and hovered there expectantly. Hyd stepped onto it and bid them all follow.

"What's going on?" whispered Che, "Someone just gave me a load of money to come down here."

"Remember Doran?" whispered Gice.

"Didn't she die?"

Dev had to admit he had completely forgotten Doran existed as well. It was such a long time ago now and she had never contributed that much to the community. They had their own lives to live, jobs to find, girlfriends to impress. As he was considering the implications of the existence of ghosts, the platform jerked to a halt and beeped at them until they stepped off it onto a thin metal walkway. In front of them was a floating... bin. It looked like a bin anyway. It was large and metal and white and had a recycle symbol painted on it, like the icon on the computer. Was this the heart of the Motavian Wastebasket - a giant bin?

"I think I know what this is." said Hyd, "We covered these in training but I never thought I'd have to go in one."

She pressed the panel on the side of the door and it opened with a smooth swish. They walked in. It was pretty much the same on the inside, very tall white metal walls. In one corner was a table, some chairs, a vending machine and a coffee machine, in the other a waiting room with leather couches, a coffee table and some magazines. Between them was a wall with a computer terminal with a very large display screen. On the screen was the image of Joan. She seemed to be floating in some kind of beam of light. She looked happy, almost serene, but for some reason Dev didn't like her being there.

Gice stepped forwards. "Doran, are you in here?"

As if in answer, there was a 'FFAUGLM!' noise. The air around them rippled and black waves of energy surged out at them, hitting everyone but Dev. His friends disappeared, disintegrated under the sheer force of the technique. The lights dimmed. He suddenly saw Doran again, floating in the air, an image of blue pixel-light.

"Now let's see how well you do on your own."

"Did you just kill my friends?" demanded Dev.

Doran raised an arm and the display screen changed. Now Che, Hyd and Mog were floating next to Joan.

"They are all dead. But don't worry. Death is not final in my world. They are in the Recycle Bin. They will not be irrevocably deleted unless someone empties it."

"You bring my friends back!"

"You like making this difficult, don't you? I remove all distractions and you'd still rather go on about someone else than talk to me." she turned around and started typing on an unseen computer, "Maybe I should just finish the job."

"What do you want, you evil ghost?" yelled Dev.

"I want full membership with administrative privileges and permanent accommodation." she said, "And I want my return from exile to be one of the top priorities of the community."

"You dragged me all the way to another world for this?" he bunched his fists up, "YOU'RE DEAD! HOW CAN I GIVE ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES AND ACCOMMODATION TO A CORPSE?"

"You've changed, Dev." she told him, "You're not the person who took me in all those years ago when I was an exile, lost and afraid. And its not just me. You don't care about any of us really, do you?"

"That's not true! I just don't have time to..."

"I think you want to keep it all for yourself." she said, "You're slowly withdrawing life support from us and shrinking the protective barriers. You're going to kill everyone in the same way that you let me die."

"You don't know anything about me!"

"You're wrong. I know enough to know that you aren't the same Dev I knew." her eyes narrowed, suddenly deadly serious, "If it wasn't for that, I would just delete you here and now."

"I'm not sure you're the same Doran." he said.

"I'm not the one on trial here." she snapped.

"I remember Doran." he continued, "Doran was a good person. She was friendly and wanted the best for people. I didn't know her well but she always seemed to be distant, like she was looking at something nobody else could see. If I'd known she was from another world, maybe I'd have understood that a little better. I remember when we were all getting drunk in the pub..."

"You... remember me?"

"We were too drunk to all get home so everyone stopped at my house and I made food because everyone else was too drunk..."

"You remember the old days?" He could see tears welling up in her eyes. He was remembering and he knew she was remembering too. A heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders and the room was filling up with light. He suddenly felt so exhausted. Exhausted but happy.

"I can't let you leave just yet." she said, "Because you'll just go back home and live as normal. I'll be stuck in this bin with nobody even to empty it and you'll let the server collapse. Let's sit and repent together, eh, almaty? Lament for the old days. Two exiles pining for our fuyodols. Companions in exile."

"When will I... when will we see our friends again?"

"When the event happens. It shouldn't be too long. I triggered it to happen in about ten minutes. Want to sit in the waiting room?"


	10. Chapter 10

Brod stared at the wall of his cell.

Imo noticed him doing that a lot recently. She wondered what he saw there. It definitely wasn't just a wall. When he wasn't staring at the invisible thing, he was playing that damn game over and over again, or reading books with titles 'Advanced Techniques and the Narrative Cycle' and 'Phantasy: It's High And Low Functions' and 'Continuity Mechanics'. She mostly left him to it and yelled at the guards and the prison lawyer she had managed to recruit to her cause.

What Brod actually saw was a pattern. A pattern in the pixels that made up empty space. A pattern in the carpet on the floor of their cell. A pattern in the guard's patrols. The pattern began from whatever was in that game and rippled out through the entire solar system, all that it touched being pulled into its orbit. The orbit of a thousand years.

"A thousand years!" he said, switching the Mega Drive on again. They had no food - again - but they always had a Mega Drive. "emo, our sentence - two billion meseta - it would take 990 years to finish, right?"

"To the second." she had been reading up on the law. She wanted to get out.

"What happened ten years ago?"

"We were ten years younger? Feeve, I don't know." she ignored him, noting that she now swore in Motavian.

"I think we committed the crime ten years ago." he said, "Not only would it explain the vast sum of money we owe..." Motavian banks were big on interest, especially with Palmans, whose job it was every Motavian to swindle outrageously like Horde killed Alliance, "It would also explain... why we're here... on this world... at all..."

He gasped. His vision was blurring again. It seemed to him suddenly that the four in the title screen of Phantasy Star 4 became a five and he was falling, falling into that soft pool of pixels like a puddle in the darkness. He saw himself reach out to the screen and touch it, watch it ripple. The data of the game was entering him like a virus and he knew all that the cycle knew, just for a brief second...

He fell over. Oblivion took him. He saw nothing but images of the game flickering out of the corner of his eye. Then he awoke with the rain pouring down on him. It was midnight and he was in a train station. The last train had just pulled in and a few passengers had just got off, a stressed-looking man in a suit with a briefcase, a large Grantz and a girl huddled in a long black coat muttering something to herself in Motavian. He reached for a newspaper. He was home. That was a relief. Then he saw that it wasn't going to be so simple after all. The date said 2014; 10 years ago. It made sense; he could never repay his debt but if he could turn the clock back, he could stop it from happening. He ran outside and hailed a taxi. 'Cybernetic Carnival' from Phantasy Star 4 played softly in the background as he was whisked to his destination.

He arrived at his home and threw open the door. Imo ran to greet him, looking very surprised. He had been upstairs changing his clothes a second ago. Why was he wearing blue owl feathers? Hastily muttering an excuse. he ran upstairs. He didn't have time to freak out about meeting his doppelganger, he hid behind the door, bashed himself over the head with a candlestick holder and locked himself in the cupboard. He changed the music to something he felt more comfortable with: Staff Roll, Phantasy Star 4.

Five minutes later, his guests started arriving. He greeted them all. An hour or so had gone by when Doran appeared, wet through from the rain.

"My name's Doran." she gasped, "I'm that exile, you know which exile I'm talking about..."

"Welcome, Doran, we've been waiting for you. We've got a place especially booked for you." he said, waving away emo's protest with a glare that was probably a little too hard; he was a rather hungry prisoner.

"R... really?"

"Of course. We must keep up diplomatic relations with other worlds. Imo and I fully support your campaign to return home."

"In that case, I owe you one."

"Then we're even."

"What?"

"Never mind. Have some wine." he smiled at Imo and wandered off upstairs to collapse on his bed, slowly bleed from agoraphobia and timeshock. He had completed his mission. 'Never Dream' from Phantasy Star 2 was playing in the background.

--

Dev had fallen asleep on the sofa when he heard the noise.

He sat up and stared at the opposite wall. It had started to shake. Slowly, a crack appeared in the middle and the two sections moved apart to reveal a door. He was free. He walked out, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the contrast between the strip-lights of the recycle bin and the light of the stars. His friends were waiting for him; Che, Hyd Lucent, Mog and Joan. Mog licked her fur indignantly; cats were NOT supposed to be half-deleted. Dev felt a rush of pure, absolute joy when he saw his girlfriend alive again. He threw his arms around her, happy to just feel her warmth again, smell her hair, hear her laugh. However, one thing was bothering him.

"Where's Doran?"

Joan pointed. Emerging from the bin was Gice, holding an unconscious figure in his arms. It was Doran.

"She's only barely alive." said the priest, "She needs urgent medical attention."

"The Lodge isn't far away. It has life-support systems, but..."

"That'll do." Gice jumped onto the moving platform. As soon as he was able to, he broke into a sprint. They reached the Lodge in no time, where the Motavians welcomed them in and helped them wire Doran up to their life support systems. Doran was a friend of the cult and was admired for her empathy with computers. The androids were gone now, apparently something Doran had created to guard the bin. They were all allowed to rest in the Lodge provided that they did not go anywhere they were not supposed to or play with all the machinery. Dev went to check his e-mail and Joan fell asleep.

Approximately an hour later, the Lodge communication system crackled into life with Doran's voice.

"Behold, Le Roof." she said in a distant voice, "I have brought you the cast of Phantasy Star 5."

Hyd gasped. The entire Wastebasket had gone silent.

"As you know, it has been almost five thousand years since the Fourth Era. Development was set back a long way by Ragol and the False Sequel. But Algol has been healing. Now the continuum is as strong as it has ever been - maybe even stronger, as they do say that what cannot kill you only makes you stronger."

"Le Roof could have chosen any high-level fighter or wizard who knew a lot about Phantasy Star. But this time, we are trying something new. Le roof wants students who are fully aware, who have an actual understanding of what they are doing at every level, not just blindly reacting to the impulses of Phantasy Star. That is why Le Roof chose students who would have to learn these impulses, these reactions tat are so instinctive to us. An outsider to Algol. I was chosen to help raise Phantasy Star to a new level in a way that Le Roof approves of. I have brought my friends from other worlds."

"The people of the world I was exiled to are not well versed in transplanetary diplomacy. I had to re-educate them a little, made sure they understand what it is like to live on other worlds. They have learnt fast. I am impressed by the speed at which I was discovered."

"You still have many flaws to iron out in your perception of Phantasy Star before you can become characters in our sacred narrative cycle. It may takes years, maybe even be a task passed onto the next generation. But I am happy to keep on teaching you all. It is the least I can do to atone for my sins, I who carry the burden of the blame for the False Sequel, even before it existed. Maybe on day I will be able to return to Algol fully. On that day, I expect to see the place exactly the way it was when I left."

"Farewell, Che Randaras - Alis, Hyd Lucent - Lutz, Mog Mogic - Myau. And, Dev Mogay - my Grantz- please come back again."

Doran PasCart died peacefully at the age of 25 in Dev's arms. Dev was Grantz-bonded at the time but survived. Doran was a given a community burial with full administrator's honours. It wasn't clear what she had died of; there were no marks on her body, no signs of any illness or even a heart attack. It was as if her soul had simply left her body.


End file.
